FIVE
WHEN NATHAN ARRIVED AT THE OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING, Maufrais was glowering at his desk in the front of the room.
“At last,” Maufrais said when he saw him, and held out a handwritten note. “The foreman’s telephone got backed over yesterday. I’m stuck with couriers until they can get something new patched together. You think you can find him? Name is Peterson. A shipment of conduit that he’s waiting on has finally arrived.” He waved the note impatiently in the air until Nathan took it from him. “And come straight back. You’re an expensive errand boy.”
Nathan made his way down through the construction site, passing men coming and going from their multitude of tasks, some laughing and shouting, others moving through their endeavors with somber focus. Even at the early hour, the air was filled with the clanking and rattling of machines and implements, all brought to bear on pushing the river back and taming it long enough for the construction to move ahead.
He found Peterson at the dam base, knee deep in wet concrete and arguing with a man who held a blowtorch. Over the noise and distance, Nathan couldn’t make out the words, but the foreman’s features were hard with anger. The man he berated shrugged, offering some tepid reply, and the foreman seized a length of steel where it rose from the surface of the concrete and pulled it free, breaking the weak weld. The one with the blowtorch frowned.
A large man now appeared, taking long, reaching strides through the concrete. When he joined the two, he squared his shoulders and sent the welder away. The big man placed an extended finger against the foreman’s shoulder, pushed it to emphasize a point. The foreman glared, but nodded, and began making his way back through the cement. As Nathan watched, the big man took from his coveralls a length of thick wire. He bent the wire and then wrapped it around the broken weld, twisting it until it held firm.
When Peterson reached him, Nathan delivered the message about the delay in the conduit shipment. The foreman spat and cursed, though whether it was about the conduit or still about the scene down in the cofferdam, Nathan couldn’t tell.
“I’ve got a message to send back,” the foreman said. “You tell Maufrais that this local labor is going to be our ruin. They’re worse to work with than the unions and they don’t have any standards.”
A bearded man joined them as they climbed out of the construction. The battered hat that sat atop his round head looked as if it had been dropped and walked upon. “Travis giving you trouble again, boss?” the man asked. “He’s been like a hornet all week.” He pushed his hat back on his head. “Woman trouble. One of the crew got into it with him at the bar, and Travis busted up his face pretty bad.” The foreman continued up the hill without so much as an answer, and the bearded man looked from the foreman to Nathan. Nathan shrugged. Clutching his hat to his head, the man hurried to catch up with the foreman. “You ain’t going to tell the fellas up the hill about this, are you, boss? Travis is a good worker. I can vouch for that. Strong as an ox and not lazy like some of these we got here.”
They reached the spot where a few men worked at fastening a scrap piece of corrugated tin to some boards to create a shade break. An electrician sat in the dust, tracing the wires of a crushed telephone. He touched a contact and the broken thing shivered, its ringer making a dull knocking. This seemed to improve the foreman’s mood. The man who had been following them seized the moment.
“You know what you need up here, boss? How about a chair? Do you good to rest your feet in the shade for a bit. I’ll send a man to fetch you one.” The foreman offered nothing in return, but the man took this as agreement and hurried away.
Satisfied that he’d delivered Maufrais’ message, Nathan climbed back up the hill to the engineering office. Most of the men had arrived now. In the morning calm, they were getting settled at their desks, a few finishing cigarettes near the door.
At eight Maufrais conferred with Fitzsimmons, who then called the men’s names roll call style, assigning them to tasks.
The assignment Nathan received was elementary, required drafting a section of the transmission lines that would connect the main branch to the generator house and the secondary lines. It was work he would have delegated to his junior staff when he’d had his own firm. He glanced around the room to see if anyone else was dissatisfied, but every man had his head down bent over his task.
The work went quickly and when he was done he carried it to Fitzsimmons.
“What’s this?” Fitzsimmons asked.
“It’s the interim transmission lines you asked for. Do you have something more for me?”
“Did you proof that? Doing it fast doesn’t do us any good if you foul things up in the field. Go double check it.”
“I checked it already. It’s good.”
“Go check it anyway.”
“But why?”
Fitzsimmons lowered his head like a bull about to charge. “Because I said to.”
Nathan glanced at Maufrais, but the head engineer had his ledger out, was inking in figures and checking them against a slip of paper. Nathan returned to his desk and went over the draft once again. Everything was as he’d thought.
Fitzsimmons sat back in his chair when Nathan approached a second time.
“It checks out,” Nathan said, placing the papers on Fitzsimmons’ desk. Fitzsimmons looked them over.
“Good,” he said when he’d finished. He took up a roll of plans from the corner of his desk. “Here, I need this copied so we can send one to both advance teams.”
“A copy?” Nathan asked. “Isn’t that something for the draftsmen?”
“Do you see any of them up here pestering me for work?” Fitzsimmons asked.
Maufrais’ telephone rang before Nathan could answer. The head engineer listened to the speaker, his dour face darkening into outright frown.
“That is going to change things,” he said when he hung up. He lowered his head and every man in the room knew he was reshuffling the pieces in his mind, accommodating this new setback. When he lifted his gaze to the room once more, he shifted the ledger he’d been writing in to one side, and took another from the desk drawer. “If the western branch is delayed, we might as well turn our efforts to the turbine house and the adjacent substation.” Fitzsimmons approached and stood before him, attentive.
“The transmission wire again?”
“They’re pushing the expected ship date another two weeks.”
“That’s the second time they’ve delayed.”
“I know. I’ll get Thomas on the telephone in a bit and find out what is going on. In the meantime, get them working on that trunk and the substation switch boards.” He passed the ledger over. “This page here breaks down the task list fairly well.”
Fitzsimmons took the ledger to the map wall and began calling out their names and assignments. After each man was called, he stood and joined Fitzsimmons at the map.
“Smith, you take the northwest section. Blevins, you and McReaken split up this interim transmission line run here.” He traced a section on the map. Blevins nodded and gestured that Nathan follow him to his desk, but Nathan lingered.
“I can handle one of the boards by myself,” he said.
“No, you stick with Blevins,” Fitzsimmons said. “What Maufrais is asking for can be a little complicated.” He continued down the list of names. The next man stepped around Nathan, received his assignment, and returned to his seat. Nathan could feel the room watching him. He had to push. This was his chance, he knew, if he was going to get himself noticed.
“I can do it,” Nathan said.
“You’ve got work aplenty right there,” Fitzsimmons said. “Peters,” he called and a man near the back rose and approached